London, Leeds & Exeter
Fri 8th Jul 2022
Up to £7,500 of IP funding available in Innovate UK’s Fast Start: Innovation competition, open until 26 July
Services: Design rights, Innovation capture, IP strategy, Obtaining a patent, Patents, Start up or scale up
Sectors: AI and data science, Cleantech and renewables, Electronics and telecoms, Life sciences and health, Materials science, Mechanical engineering, Software patents
Innovate UK are today launching a new series of grants totaling £30 million. The Fast Start: Innovation Grants application process is open for entry to innovative UK small and micro-businesses from 11 to 26 July 2022.
Each grant awarded will be between £25,000 and £50,000. Up to £7,500 of this funding may be used toward official fees and/or professional fees of one of our IP experts for work in developing an IP portfolio for your project. For example, this could cover:
- filing a patent application;
- advice on patentability of an invention;
- a freedom-to-operate IP review before entering a new market;
- developing an innovation capture strategy;
- planning a patent filing strategy for international expansion.
It should be noted that the grant does not cover legal costs related to the filing of trademarks.
Grants will be rewarded to innovations which fall into one or more of the seven technology areas set out in the UK government’s Innovation Strategy:
- advanced materials and manufacturing;
- artificial intelligence, digital and advanced computing;
- bioinformatics and genomics;
- engineering biology;
- electronics, photonics and quantum;
- energy and environment technologies; and
- robotics and smart machine.
Innovate UK will ask businesses to consider how their innovations could be applied to move towards net zero or to help solve the challenges of self-driven healthcare and wellbeing.
For businesses which are successful with their application, Innovate UK EDGE will offer tailored business support. The grants provide a fantastic opportunity for UK small and micro-businesses to drive forward innovative projects to successful commercialisation.
For further information, please visit the competition overview here and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s summary of the competition here.
This briefing is for general information purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for legal advice relating to your particular circumstances. We can discuss specific issues and facts on an individual basis. Please note that the law may have changed since the day this was first published in July 2022.
